Tennelly came straight to Courtland, as though he had known he would be waiting there for him.  “I am going to take Gila down to Beechwood.  You will come with us?” There was entreaty in the tone, though it was very quiet.

“Shall I take my car?”

“No.  You will ride with me on the front seat.  Is there a maid here that I can hire to go with us?  We can bring her back in the morning.”

“I’ll find out.”

That was a silent ride through the late moonlight.  The men spoke only when it was necessary to keep the right road.  Gila, huddled sullenly in the back seat beside a dozing, gray-haired chambermaid, spoke not at all.  And who shall say what were her thoughts as hour after hour she sat in her humiliation and watched the two men whom she had wronged so deeply?  Perhaps her spirit seethed the more violently within her silent, angry body because she was not yet sure of Tennelly.  Her tears and explanations, her pleading little story of deceit and innocence, had not wrought the charm upon him that they might had not Aquilar been known to him for the past two weeks, a stranger who had been hanging about Gila, and who had been encouraged against her lover’s oft-repeated warnings.  A certain mysterious story of an unfaithful wife put an air of romance about him that Tennelly had not liked.  Gila had never seen him so serious and hard to coax as he had been to-night.  He had spoken to her as if she were a naughty child; had commanded her to go at once to her aunt in Beechwood and remain there the allotted time.  She simply had to obey or lose him.  There were things about Tennelly’s fortune and prospects that made him most desirable as a husband.  Moreover, she felt that through marrying Tennelly she could the better hurt Courtland, the man whom she now hated with all her heart.

They reached Beechwood at not too unearthly an hour.  The aunt was surprised, but not unduly so, for Gila was a girl of many whims, and that she came at all to quiet Beechwood to rest was shock enough for one day.  She asked no troublesome questions.

Tennelly would not remain for breakfast, even, but started on the return trip at once, with only a brief stop at a wayside inn for something to eat.  The elderly attendant in the back seat was disappointed.  She had no chance to get a bit of gossip by the way with any one, but she got good pay for the night’s ride, and made up some thrilling stories to tell when she got back that were really better than the truth might have turned out to be, so there was nothing lost, after all.

It was Tennelly who broke the silence between them when he and Courtland were at last alone together.  “She only went for a ride in his aeroplane,” he said, sadly.  “She had no idea of staying more than an afternoon.  He had promised to set her down at the next station to Beechwood, where her aunt was to meet her.  She was filled with horror and consternation when she found she must be away overnight.  But even then she had no idea of his purpose.  She says that nobody ever told her about such things, she was ignorant as a little child!  She is full of repentance, and feels that this will be a lesson for her.  She says she intends to devote her life to me if I will only forgive her.”